Posts Tagged ‘VW U.S. plant’

Volkswagen sticks with the time-tested Passat name for its New Midsize Sedan.

Drum roll, please? And the name for the sedan that could determine the future of Volkswagen’s U.S. franchise? Passat.

Say that again? Passat. The all-new 4-door, until now known by its codename, NMS, or New Midsize Sedan, is getting a familiar name, the same one that VW has used for nearly two decades.

Nonetheless, the maker asserted, at an invitation-only event prior to the opening of the Detroit Auto Show, the 2012 Passat sold in the U.S. will be a very different car from the sedan bearing that nameplate in the rest of the world.

It will need to be. VW has very ambitious plans for the U.S., the only major market where it has been stuck in also-ran territory. By 2018, the maker wants to roughly triple sales volume to 800,000 a year – critical if it expects to meet its corporate goal of displacing Toyota as the world’s largest automaker.

VW was built on the Beetle. A "new" Bug, due in a couple years, will be critical in reviving U.S. sales and gaining global domination.Volkswagen is about to come full circle.

Few cars, anywhere in the auto industry, have been more important than the original Beetle, which was the foundation upon which Volkswagen built its worldwide empire. While the current incarnation of the little car is no more than an afterthought for the brand, on a global scale, it remains an icon for American motorists.

So, VW expects the next-generation Beetle to not only play a critical role in rebuilding its position in the U.S. market, but helping set it up for global domination. Increasingly successful despite – or perhaps because of – the global automotive downturn, VW officials acknowledge they’re aiming to knock down the current automotive sales king-of-the-hill, Toyota.

Your Automotive "New" Source!

“The Beetle successor will be a halo car that sells in large numbers,” Stefan Jacoby, CEO of Volkswagen of America, or VWoA, told TheDetroitBureau.com, during an interview in Germany, earlier today.